Open Your Eyes

by Paula Daly

  Once I was in the attic, at the computer, I cursed myself for not doing this sooner. For remaining blind to what was going on inside our household. After Charlie’s loan revelation, I was not holding out much hope that the lack of funds in our joint account was down to a mere banking error. Leon had been worrying about money for months. I thought back to the days, weeks, before the attack, trying to come up with something I might have missed.

  Why would Leon keep the fact that we had no money to himself? I had heard about this. Men who remortgaged secretly rather than tell their wives that the money had dried up. Men who pretended to go to work rather than come clean and say there was no longer a job to go to. I’d always dismissed the wives of these men as head-in-the-sand types who must have had some clue. How could you not?

  And yet, here I was. That woman. The woman who, after the arrival of her children, had handed over responsibility of everything financial to her husband. A woman who didn’t ever think to question that what he was telling her was the truth. A woman who was now left high and dry because she didn’t open her eyes.

  Had Leon been attacked by loan sharks? Was that even possible?

  The style of his assault certainly bore the hallmarks of an authorized attack: fast, violent, cold-blooded.

  But Ledecky had always maintained it was more likely to have been an opportunistic attempt on Leon’s life because the weapon belonged to us. ‘We’re working on the assumption that this was largely unplanned,’ she’d said just after the nail gun was discovered. Someone came upon Leon, spoke to him, saw the open garage door right in front of the car, the nail gun on show, and took his moment.

  But who? And, more importantly, why? I could only assume Leon owed money elsewhere.

  A cold sensation spread through me. Had Leon asked Charlie for money to pay his other debtors?

  But this still didn’t answer the question of why we were in debt in the first place.

  The computer prompted me for a password.

  I’d seen Leon type in this password hundreds of times when I’d been up here delivering tea, coffee and – if it was after five o’clock, and he’d had a long day – whisky. But I’d never asked him what it was.

  I typed: ‘DS Clement’.

  Leon’s fictional detective was the password he used for most things. He stayed away from the kids’ names, birthdays, our anniversary.

  It was incorrect.

  I tried: ‘Detective Sergeant Clement’.

  Wrong again.

  Shit, Leon. What is it?

  It occurred to me that I might never get into his computer.

  I cast around the room for inspiration, something that might help with the password problem. Leon kept his workspace orderly; it was pretty spartan. He liked things in their place and said his mind couldn’t work out complicated plots if there was clutter in his immediate environment.

  I looked to my right. The bookshelves. Leon didn’t keep his own novels up here because they paralysed him, he said. He was always in fear of repeating himself and found them an unwanted distraction. But he did keep a small selection of his writerly heroes close by for motivation: Stephen King, Ian Rankin, Lee Child.

  Lee.

  I typed in: ‘Lee Clement’.

  Lee Clement was the full name of Leon’s fictional detective but he never ever used it in his books. I think he hoped the books might become big enough one day that the name itself would take on mythical status, and readers would ask the question: But do you know Clement’s Christian name? (And yes, that’s what Colin Dexter did with Inspector Morse, held back his name so it piqued everyone’s interest. Hardly original on that score, Leon.)

  I hit enter.

  I was in.

  A giddy feeling descended and for a moment I was too jittery to type. I moved the cursor around his home screen not quite knowing where to begin.

  I started with his emails. It seemed as good a place as any.

  One thousand and forty-one unanswered messages. I scrolled through them. There was a lot of junk: promotional messages from Dirty Tinder; Hot Russian girls who wanted to please, and, one assumed, to be paid in return. There was some relentless dickhead who couldn’t spell, sending daily emails, assuring Leon that HMRC was offering a substantial tax rebate, so long as he provided his full bank details.

  I really had no idea what I was looking for. So, short of a better idea, I tried searching Leon’s emails for the name Alistair Armitage, the budding author who accused Leon of stealing his work, since he was the only person I could think of with a real grudge against Leon.

  Nothing.

  This didn’t really surprise me. Leon had always tried to put as much distance as he could between himself and Alistair and as far as I knew he never corresponded with him online.

  What else?

  I searched his emails using the words ‘debt’ and ‘repay’ and ‘loan’ but, aside from the usual nonsense from Nigeria, nothing jumped out.

  I searched for ‘Lawrence Williams’, again because I had no clue what I was really looking for, and again, nothing came up.

  I closed Leon’s Microsoft account and opened up his documents.

  All his novels were on there, the various drafts of each one saved as a separate file. And there were also a number of video files.

  This got my attention as Leon did not shoot videos. It wasn’t his thing.

  We weren’t the kind of parents who were organized enough to record their kids’ big milestones. We enjoyed Jack’s nativity rather than capturing the moment on our phones. We didn’t think to document their first steps, their first words; we were just so busy being excited.

  I clicked on the first video file and there was nothing.

  A blank grey screen. Nothing to see.

  At least, at first, I thought it was nothing. A grey screen, yes. Then, raindrops on glass. The clouds behind the glass moving slowly.

  Where was this?

  I heard Leon clear his throat, and there followed a high-pitched creaking sound which I realized was Leon opening the Velux window.

  He was recording from the very spot just to the left of where I was sitting now. He was filming out of the window.

  He angled the camera down on to the street until it came to rest on Lawrence Williams opposite and Leon zoomed in.

  ‘What the …’ I said aloud.

  Lawrence was cleaning his car. He was seated on a small stool, polishing his alloy wheels. He had a range of brushes and cloths at his feet. He wore a set of safety goggles to protect his eyes.

  This was standard Lawrence behaviour. The question was: Why had Leon filmed it?

  I clicked on another video file.

  Again, the other side of the street. He panned up and down the houses as if he was looking for something. He zoomed in, then out. I could hear his breathing. Hear him exhale, trying to keep the camera steady.

  Jesus, Leon, this is creepy.

  Then there was a break in the film and when we returned he was on Rose’s VW Polo: Rose, pulling out of her driveway with great care, as was her way. Rose had almost killed a cyclist outside the Everyman Theatre a few years back by opening her car door without checking her wing mirror first. She’d confided that the horror of that day had always stayed with her and so she was now over-cautious. This was before I left my car outside her house for three weeks, back when we were still what you’d call neighbourly.

  Why the hell was he filming Rose?

  ‘What are you doing, Leon?’ I whispered.

  I sat back in my chair and frowned at the screen. What made Leon document the street? It made no sense.

  I opened another file and then another. Same deal: grey sky, occasionally blue; a long, low screech as Leon opened the window, before he began filming the street.

  Was this what he did up here all day?

  When he was supposed to be writing?

  I hardly dared open any more. It was disturbing. I clicked on another and another. All the same. All filming the street, sometimes Rose and L
awrence going about their daily chores. Occasionally, there’d be a clip of Glyn Williams, entering or exiting his parents’ house. A close-up on Glyn’s shifty gaze, his odd, uneven, stiffened gait, as he walked to and from his car.

  The clips seemed obsessive, compulsive. What was going through Leon’s head to make him do this day after day?

  I opened one more. This time we were back on Lawrence. He was carrying the detachable bin from his lawn mower and was walking away from his house. The camera zoomed out so we got the wider angle, to show Lawrence’s position, and then back in again as Lawrence looked around furtively, first across the street, then next over his shoulder. He then proceeded to dump his grass cuttings into the recycling bin of the house next door but one to his. It was the student house. I’d seen Lawrence do this too. I didn’t see the harm in it. Those kids weren’t in the habit of recycling their green waste.

  Lawrence made his way back and the camera panned out just as a car rolled slowly into shot. It was a black saloon.

  The car stopped in the middle of the road just outside our house.

  It was a BMW. A Volvo perhaps.

  The car idled for a while and Lawrence, his interest piqued, placed the grass bin by his gate and ambled over. Once by the driver’s window, Lawrence started nodding. ‘Yes,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘yes, that’s right,’ and he was laughing a little.

  I increased the volume.

  I heard Leon’s breathing quicken.

  Lawrence was now pointing across to our house and nodding his head in agreement.

  When was this?

  I checked the date of the file. August. Two weeks before Leon’s attack.

  Lawrence was still talking. Did he know who was in the car? He lifted his head and gazed upwards, towards the camera, and Leon must have taken a sudden step backwards in response.

  The screen now showed the wall.

  ‘Go back!’ I shouted out in desperation.

  But the screen went black.

  16

  I couldn’t sleep.

  My mind was reeling from Charlie’s disclosure, from Leon’s extensive surveillance … the black saloon car. Had the person driving that car attacked Leon? Leon had backed away from the window. Did he know the driver of the car?

  I got up and paced. I couldn’t understand how Leon had this almost other life that I’d not been privy to.

  As dawn broke, I decided I couldn’t undo what had happened to Leon, and I couldn’t sit in the attic going through video clips all day in the hope of finding answers. I dropped Jack at school and Martha at nursery, and by 9 a.m. I was outside the bank, and ten minutes later I was in the private office of the mortgage advisor – begging her for more time. She agreed. She put a hold on the mortgage payments and said we would meet again in February to reassess. She informed me that Leon had not remortgaged the house, as Charlie had theorized, but he had instead taken out a long-term loan against the house, to the tune of fifteen thousand pounds – which was all but the same thing. He’d told the bank it was needed to go towards a new kitchen. And at least this explained how he could gain such a sum of money without my signature.

  Where this money had gone to, I had no idea. I racked my brain trying to think of what he could have needed it for, but nothing came to me.

  What were you doing, Leon?

  When I returned, and I called Leon’s agent, I got my answer.

  I was put through to Jon Grayling, after being placed on hold, and when I asked about Leon’s recent payments, asked when the next instalment would be due from the book that was to be published in March next year, Jon Grayling coughed loudly, before saying, ‘Book? What book? There is no bloody book.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Leon has not delivered his latest book,’ he said. ‘As in he’s not finished his latest book.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, quite sure that Jon Grayling was confused, ‘we are talking about the same book, aren’t we? Red City? Leon told me this novel was done and dusted.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid you’ve been misled, my dear. That book is only two-thirds done,’ he said. ‘And those two-thirds are nothing to write home about.’

  This, Jon Grayling said, was why we had stopped receiving payments.

  I felt as if I’d been slapped hard across the face.

  ‘I think Leon’s been living on fresh air for the past eight months,’ he went on. ‘He was calling me every day in quite a state … Shocking really, because Leon has always been so reliable story-wise … But I suppose everyone dries up eventually. Leon said he was blocked. Just completely blocked.’

  ‘Leon told me he’d been working on a new book,’ I said. ‘He told me Red City was finished and he was working on a new one.’

  ‘There is no such book,’ Jon Grayling said bluntly. ‘Leon was nowhere near done with Red City … and I have to tell you that HarperCollins are happy to give you some grace, my dear, on account of Leon’s health, but I must warn you that if that book never arrives on my desk, then you’ll be liable to pay back the advance in full – which Leon received last year. I wish I had better news for you.’

  I could feel fury building in my chest. A loud rushing in my ears.

  Why had Leon not told me?

  ‘Did he explain to you why he was blocked?’ I asked, trying not to think about how much we now owed HarperCollins. ‘Did he explain why he couldn’t write any longer?’

  Jon Grayling sighed, long and hard. ‘I think if writers knew the answer to that then they wouldn’t get stuck in the first place. So, no, I can’t help you there. But he did seem … what’s the right word … he seemed rather angry about something. He never confided as to what, so I can’t say whether that’s what was holding him up … You really didn’t notice this yourself?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t.’

  ‘Ah, well, writers are an odd bunch. I’ll never fully understand them.’

  We finished it there and I was left staring at the phone trying to make sense of it all.

  No book.

  And no money.

  And no way of Leon generating any money.

  And he was angry? Angry about what exactly? What did he have to be angry about?

  Christ, I felt as though I was going round in circles.

  My next call was to Teresa Graham, the adult learning coordinator. I’d last spoken to Teresa just after Leon’s attack when I informed her that I wouldn’t be able to resume my creative writing classes after the summer break as usual. She understood, naturally, and she tried her very best to sound empathetic, but I could hear in her voice the panic at losing another teacher at such short notice. So when I called her today and said I was coming back, and that I in fact needed more hours – a lot more hours – she sounded as if she might burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, Jane. Really? One of my full-timers has been signed off sick for eight weeks, and I’m at my wits’ end. Can you cover her classes? It will involve the programme at Walton Gaol … I know you probably won’t want to do that one but—’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  I told her I had to or we wouldn’t eat.

  I put the phone down and made a list of all the other things I’d need to sort out: Martha’s nursery hours would need extending, and I’d have to call the family credit helpline to check if I’d be reimbursed for the costs; I’d also need to—

  My mobile was ringing.

  Gloria.

  I wasn’t expecting her to call this morning as Juliana had said she was barring her mother from the unit for a few days as well as me. Usually, Gloria called each day. She’d arrive at the rehab unit before me, and would then call to dictate a list of things Leon would require – items for me to collect from home, or else pick up from the shops on my way in: clean socks, nail clippers, apples, a nice prawn salad.

  I put the phone to my ear and Gloria said, ‘Jane, he remembers. Leon remembers.’

  Thrown, at first I didn’t answer.

  Then I said, ‘What does he remember?’
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  And Gloria paused. Not for dramatic effect, but because she was so overcome that the words literally disintegrated in her throat.

  ‘You,’ she said eventually. ‘He remembers you.’

  I was numb. Speechless.

  Was this real?

  ‘What does he remember about me?’ and she said I needed to come.

  ‘Come quickly and see for yourself. He has new memories. Lots of them.’

  I took a breath. My legs felt as though they would give out. I sat down heavily on the sofa.

  I hadn’t expected this. I really hadn’t expected this. Even though we had had glimmers of change, they were just that – glimmers. Juliana had devoted hours to going over shared childhood memories, hoping to find the key to unlocking her brother’s subconscious. They’d had limited success; nothing that you could put your finger on. But there was definitely something marginally different about Leon: a change in his expression, a peacefulness, I suppose, that made you stop what you were doing and regard him differently. Was he in there? I’d found myself thinking more and more of late. Was Leon in there, just waiting, waiting for the right moment to emerge?

  Could it be possible that Juliana and Eden, between them, had now finally managed to unlock Leon’s mind?

  I got my coat.

  17

  What was I expecting?

  Perhaps I’d envisaged a kind of grand reunion, whereby Leon leaped up and embraced me, as if we’d been held apart for months on end. At last, we were back together and everything that we’d been through would fall away in the moment; nothing mattered any more because we were one again.

  The reality was somewhat less dramatic.